Deezmaker will be the 2nd such store in the country, after New York's MakerBot.

We’ve all heard of 3D printers, but there still aren’t that many places where you can see, touch—and most importantly—try out a 3D printer before you commit to plunking down hundreds or thousands of dollars to add one to your own hacker den.

But if you find yourself in Southern California (specifically, Pasadena) on Sunday, you can attend the opening of Deezmaker, the West Coast’s first 3D printer retail store, set to open on September 23, 2012 at 2pm. That will bring the grand total of 3D printer retail stores in America (and possibly the world) to two.

Bre Petttis’ MakerBot store in New York opened on September 20 to much fanfare in the maker and tech communities. That store sells MakerBot’s own Replicator 2 to the tune of $2,200. Meanwhile, Diego Porqueras’ store will sell his own recently Kickstarted "Bukobot" for just $600.

Various online 3D printer retailers have been around for some time, but these two stores are the first brick-and-mortar versions. Some 3D printing-related companies have already raised decentamounts of venture capital in recent months.

With the addition of a California store, the 3D printing community may just be poised to start to inch out of its hobbyist roots and gain much more widespread acceptance. This event seems awfully similar to December 8, 1975, the day that the Byte Shop opened up. That store, Silicon Valley’s first, later became the debut retail outlet for the Apple I.

"These are like the early personal computer stores," wrote Mark Frauenfelder, the editor-in-chief of Make magazine, in an e-mail sent to Ars.

"The difference is that in the 1970s, there was no Web to publicize the machines, so they were necessary. Today, a video of a 3D printer is a very effective marketing tool. I don't know if retail stores for 3D printers will take off, honestly. These stores will help make non-nerds aware of 3D printers, but will non-nerds buy 3D? Maybe they will!"

Paul Terrell, the founder of the Byte Shop, told Ars that he was intrigued, but wasn't convinced that the public would embrace it.

"I think it is important for these stores to be out there—I think there is a definite path," he said. "My take on it [is] that it would be a great franchising opportunity. Somebody should be out franchising these stores. There’s going to have to be a show-me aspect. That’s what you've got to do here. There’s going to be a real need for these stores to be out there and they can’t be all mom-and-pop, and it’s going to take time for the big companies [to get on board.]"

Enlarge/ The Deezmaker store is in prime SoCal geek territory, near CalTech, JPL, and Pasadena City College.

Location, location, location

Porqueras told Ars that in addition to selling the Bukobot, he’ll make other companies’ models available, too.

"It’s going to showcase printers so people can see and touch and feel how the printers work," he said. "There’s a lot of demand for this in Los Angeles, but there’s no place where they can go to buy parts."

Porqueras acknowledged that no one will be able to buy a Bukobot—or any other 3D printer—for at least another month, as he ramps up production to fulfill all the Kickstarter and other pre-orders that he’s taken already.

The store—like many retail shops in Los Angeles—is nestled in a strip mall. But this one likely has potential customers built-in: it is situated in a prime location in Pasadena, a 10-minute walk to Pasadena City College, 20 minute walk north of the California Institute of Technology (CalTech) campus, and a 15 minute drive from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Still waiting for that killer app

Of course, while 3D printing has seen a lot of excitement among the geek set for some time now, there hasn’t yet been an easy-to-use, cheap, killer application. After all, while the Apple I was released in 1976, it took three years for its first killer app, VisiCalc (a spreadsheet), to really drive sales.

For the moment, Porqueras declined to give any revenue projections, but said that based on his projections, he was confident that the store would last "at least a year."

"3D printing has very broad applications, from making toys at home to [potentially] printing out kidneys," Porqueras added. "There’s a million things you can do with a 3D printer. I think anybody trying to get into the market now will have a chance of surviving."

Retail Stores are always competing with the Internet for sales but the beauty of this product and the need for a brick and mortar retail outlet is "seeing is believing" and how can you do that on line unless you have a 3D Display and even then you don't get to experience the "What you see is what you get" unless your standing in that retail store taking that print out off the printer!!!!!

I Love it!! Maybe it's time to come out of retirement and do Byte Shop II.

These entrepreneurs need to setup as retail/service stores. Yeah, you can buy a 3D printer, but if you just want to print off a couple jobs, load up your files into the queue (via a website?), pay, and pick up.

Sounds like an Alpha Graphics store from back in the day with those kind of printing services offered to the public for pick up.... And didn't FedEX buy them!!! What a great exit strategy for a chain of stores.

These entrepreneurs need to setup as retail/service stores. Yeah, you can buy a 3D printer, but if you just want to print off a couple jobs, load up your files into the queue (via a website?), pay, and pick up.

Exactly, and offer a variety of 3D machines. You want it in metal, wood, or plastic? Just change which machine you send the files to. Given enough different machines, you could output an entire finished product (assembly is extra).

I would think that a Kinkos model would work better than a Staples. There's no need for a brick and mortar store to sell 3d printers, but renting access to them could be quite useful. Even that seems more on the scale of a local hackerspace than an actual business, though.

What materials are these printers capable of handling? plastic? metal? wood?

Is this basically a scaled down user friendly CNC machine?

They print using heatset plastics. One of the coolest uses I've heard of for these was this article about a hospital in the UK saving thousands of dollars and weeks of time by printing bone models to prepare for complex surgeries.

Oh, and at $600 this is seriously going to compete with homebrew beer equipment for my next bonus check.

What materials are these printers capable of handling? plastic? metal? wood?

Is this basically a scaled down user friendly CNC machine?

Generally they're ABS (Lego) or PLA (biodegradable, corn-based) plastics. The cheap home models, at least. Someone is working on a 'wood' filament which is really wood fibre in PLA matrix, but the prints I saw look kinda woody.

Look at Shapeways.com to see what the high-end commercial 3D printers can work with.

I have a feeling 3D printers won't be exceptionally useful as long as they can only print using a single material. So far you can print models and single parts, but you can't really print any working machines or complex objects.

They print using heatset plastics. One of the coolest uses I've heard of for these was this article about a hospital in the UK saving thousands of dollars and weeks of time by printing bone models to prepare for complex surgeries.

Oh, and at $600 this is seriously going to compete with homebrew beer equipment for my next bonus check.

*edit*edited URL to go to source article.

Again thanks for the quick info.

Yes I definitely hear you, I am very interested in this tech this is pretty awesome. My initial thought was making rediculously decked out coffee mugs, I would be the only person at my office with a tardis coffee mug.

The big thing holding back 3d printing is ease of use. each printer should have a scanner built in so you can duplicate anything you put in it (or the mirror image of it), since most folks suck at 3d modeling, and the other improvement needs to be that the software to print stuff needs to look and behave less like something from a lab, and more like a 2d printer dialog box.

I just got a Mendel Prusa reprap printer, and although I am a pretty technically literate guy I could not figure out how to get it to print, and even worse I could find no concise instructions for that online in spite of this being a very popular printer. I was fortunate that I could get advice from an experienced user, but that is not something that you can (or should) count on for a device trying to become a mainstream product.

I have a feeling 3D printers won't be exceptionally useful as long as they can only print using a single material. So far you can print models and single parts, but you can't really print any working machines or complex objects.

That is like saying that bronze casting would not be very useful because it is a single material and you can't cast any working machines.

Look on Thingaverse and you can see plenty of printable complex devices, and if you combine them with other bought objects you can make stuff like other 3d printers.

I watched a video demo of RepRap a while back and thought that was the coolest thing ever. I just cant wait til it is macro-size to build things like single protruded car bodies and houses. The future is now.

I have to ask, because my mind is wandering in this direction, are copyright/trademark lawyers foaming at the mouth waiting for this to be released en-masse?

Dont worry. Assuming you arent printing out Apple logos and selling them, trademark is a non-issue and copyright doesnt apply in the slightest. Trade dress may be an issue, though, since apparently curved-edged rectangles are patentable...

These entrepreneurs need to setup as retail/service stores. Yeah, you can buy a 3D printer, but if you just want to print off a couple jobs, load up your files into the queue (via a website?), pay, and pick up.

Exactly, and offer a variety of 3D machines. You want it in metal, wood, or plastic? Just change which machine you send the files to. Given enough different machines, you could output an entire finished product (assembly is extra).

I have to ask, because my mind is wandering in this direction, are copyright/trademark lawyers foaming at the mouth waiting for this to be released en-masse?

The difficulty is that most IP laws are written in such a way that a person could build a copy of say an iPhone for their own personal use, but selling it would be breaking the law. This permission is important, because to create any improvement of an existing invention the first step is to to copy it to understand it. The big problem is that if everybody has a perfect 3d printer then everyone could print their own iPhones instead of buying them from some company. Of course it will be years, maybe decades before Apple has reason to fear this technology, but it is a freight train coming and it will crush anything in its path. I suspect that to tell people what kind of stuff they can make in their own home would provoke so much anger as to make the 2nd amendment fans seem low key.

I have a feeling 3D printers won't be exceptionally useful as long as they can only print using a single material. So far you can print models and single parts, but you can't really print any working machines or complex objects.

I've got a working mechanism for a grandfather clock - printed as a single part on a Dimension 1200es - in my office that says you aren't completely correct.

Dancing Around the Campfire...3D printing, combined and integrated with CNC so we add and subtract in concert to build what we could only dream....It's like writing your novel on yellow legal pads with a pencil, or dong it online with spellcheck and Google helping you get it right..then printing it out and reading it on paper to see if it works.

I built a printer to transfer DV to 35mm film. Don't get me started.

This 3D printing evolution is so dynamite cool. So very, very cool and, once again, HERE WE GO!!!

They print using heatset plastics. One of the coolest uses I've heard of for these was this article about a hospital in the UK saving thousands of dollars and weeks of time by printing bone models to prepare for complex surgeries.

Oh, and at $600 this is seriously going to compete with homebrew beer equipment for my next bonus check.

*edit*edited URL to go to source article.

Again thanks for the quick info.

Yes I definitely hear you, I am very interested in this tech this is pretty awesome. My initial thought was making rediculously decked out coffee mugs, I would be the only person at my office with a tardis coffee mug.

PLA melts at around 160 degrees, and ABS becomes very flexible at around the boiling point of water. Because of that, I'd strongly suggest you use a printed coffee cup for iced beverages only, or give it as a gift to someone you don't like very much...

They print using heatset plastics. One of the coolest uses I've heard of for these was this article about a hospital in the UK saving thousands of dollars and weeks of time by printing bone models to prepare for complex surgeries.

Oh, and at $600 this is seriously going to compete with homebrew beer equipment for my next bonus check.

*edit*edited URL to go to source article.

Again thanks for the quick info.

Yes I definitely hear you, I am very interested in this tech this is pretty awesome. My initial thought was making rediculously decked out coffee mugs, I would be the only person at my office with a tardis coffee mug.

PLA melts at around 160 degrees, and ABS becomes very flexible at around the boiling point of water. Because of that, I'd strongly suggest you use a printed coffee cup for iced beverages only, or give it as a gift to someone you don't like very much...

PLA melts at around 160 degrees, and ABS becomes very flexible at around the boiling point of water. Because of that, I'd strongly suggest you use a printed coffee cup for iced beverages only, or give it as a gift to someone you don't like very much...

HDPE would be the obvious choice but it's apparently a bit of a pain to deal with in 3D printing for some reason (probably mostly due to the adjacent layer being too cold for proper bonding).

I think 3D printers could hit the mainstream if they became easy to use and had a useful/popular purpose. Think about how ubiquitous photo printers became with the advent of affordable digital cameras. Perhaps it will take something like a Napster of 3D objects to really bring 3D printing into more homes. Or maybe this will just always remain a niche tool, much like a Soldering Iron or a Dremel, only for people with the patience, knowledge, skill and of course need to use it.

Until we start hearing about homebrew/low budget 3D scanners these things won't really take off. It's great having designs, but what the average joe would want is to drop a part into a box, hit a button, and have five printed up.

The big thing holding back 3d printing is ease of use. each printer should have a scanner built in so you can duplicate anything you put in it (or the mirror image of it), since most folks suck at 3d modeling, and the other improvement needs to be that the software to print stuff needs to look and behave less like something from a lab, and more like a 2d printer dialog box.

I just got a Mendel Prusa reprap printer, and although I am a pretty technically literate guy I could not figure out how to get it to print, and even worse I could find no concise instructions for that online in spite of this being a very popular printer. I was fortunate that I could get advice from an experienced user, but that is not something that you can (or should) count on for a device trying to become a mainstream product.

Weird disconnect for me, I'm old enough computers were just starting to be used by students when I was in jr high.

I learned as much if not more on my own using public library and other resources than I did at school.

But I had 3 years of electronics in HS, had good electronics teacher, we not only fixed appliances and such, but worked with breadboards, soldering circuits, and programing a C64 to control a stepper motor.

But I run into lot of younger Nerds now that though they have put computers together and code professionally don't know how to make circuits with breadboard or use a solder gun.

IMO troubleshooting circuits isn't exactly the same as troubleshooting software, and when you start adding motors, servos, sensors, etc your adding additional a lot more complexity.

I have to ask, because my mind is wandering in this direction, are copyright/trademark lawyers foaming at the mouth waiting for this to be released en-masse?

Dont worry. Assuming you arent printing out Apple logos and selling them, trademark is a non-issue and copyright doesnt apply in the slightest. Trade dress may be an issue, though, since apparently curved-edged rectangles are patentable...

Actually, this is a major issue already. Some people have duplicated copyrighted game pieces and figurines. Lawsuits are pending. This will be a bigger issue in the future.

The question that comes up is can you use your 3D printer to make another 3D printer?

Nearly: Check out the RepRap project. Electronics, fasteners, and long, straight, strong parts are the holdouts at the moment. (Though the last two there are some workaround for, just expensive in terms of plastic, and finicky.)

Copyright lawsuits pensing this is still a good idea for small DIY projects around the house if u break something you really need, then print it out in an hour or two and use it. I see this as a niche product, not a mainstream product. It makes more sense for consumers to build simple things then difficult ones to the average Joe or Sally.